Audio: Dr. Martin Luther King — Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
Gwendolyn B. Bennet: Four Poems
Something of old forgotten queens
Lurks in the lithe abandon of your walk
And something of the shackled slave
Sobs in the rhythm of your talk.
Audio: Danez Smith reads “not an elegy for Mike Brown”
I am sick of writing this poem
but bring the boy. his new name
his same old body. ordinary, black
dead thing. bring him & we will mourn
Video: Goodbye, Morganza
Devon Blackwell’s short documentary explores how her great-grandparents lost the house they had owned since 1892, and the impact of that loss on generations of her family.
Video: Play Hard
Nate, a workaholic drummer, spends all his time practicing in pursuit of perfection. When he meets Yazmine, a like-minded, dedicated modern dancer, he realizes that the key to success isn’t just to work hard – sometimes it requires you to play hard.
Ellen Bryant Voigt | At the Movie: Virginia, 1956
When finally we got our own TV, the evening news
with its hooded figures of the Ku Klux Klan
seemed like another movie
Daniella Toosie-Watson: A Series of Small Miracles
Listen: in this poem, there are no men.
I give to myself & give again.
George Yancy: Trump’s Education Plan Seeks to Make Cruel Domination Into “Common Sense”
Control the curriculum and you control the range of ideas that people are exposed to. This is why schooling is inherently political.
Audio: Son House performing County Farm Blues
Put you under a man called “Captain Jack”
Put you under a man they call “Captain Jack”
He’ll sure write his name up and down your back
Video: Eternity
Valerie and Alan have been married 57 years. Eternity is a look at love that lasts a lifetime, whether they like it or not.
Joseph Bathanti: Cletis Pratt
First man I ever saw in irons,
wearing nothing but a pair of scurvy white
long john britches, was Cletis Pratt
Video: Dear Philadelphia
With the help of their family, friends, and faith, three fathers unravel the incomparable partnership of forgiveness and community in North Philadelphia.
Langston Hughes | Beaumont to Detroit: 1943
You tell me that hitler
Is a mighty bad man.
I guess he took lessons
from the ku klux klan.
Desne A. Crossley: A Wallflower and Her Mother
Clueless about west coast Whiteness, for sure. For my anxious mother, this meant I needed her singular brand of watchful encouragement to grow into a whole person, a whole woman—and to be taught some street smarts for life in suburban Palo Alto with its unfamiliar patterns and pitfalls.
